On my very first visit to France with my young family I took them into a cafe in a small town in the North of France.
We read the menu which was written in chalk on a board on the wall.
The Children were intrigued by one item which was written as Cheval Hamburger, but then it dawned on them that Cheval was the same word as the French use for horse.
Horrified they refused to order anything and after finishing and paying for our drinks we left.
So now they and we are horrified all over again.
Some good jokes have been shared, my favourite was: I have just eaten a burger from Tesco, I enjoyed it but I've still got a bit in my teeth.
Of course Mr Cameron was dismayed by the news which he thought was extremely disturbing and completely unacceptable and will doubtless raise it in his speech on the EEC tomorrow amidst heckling from Nigel Farage in the form of neighing noises or was that just him laughing?
At least we have been spared a latter day John Gummer on TV with his children eating burgers from a van parked outside his daughters riding school.
Or possibly worse, Michael Gove force feeding burgers to the pupils in one of his academies or free schools, perhaps with Jamie Oliver looking over his shoulder?
But what do we expect?
The thing about real food is that it costs money to produce when it has to be raised, grown and harvested.
I can pop round to my local butcher to buy the best steak and he will be able to tell me where the beast was raised, which abattoir it was sourced from and how long it has been hung, but he will charge me for it and it won't be cheap.
The burgers my Butcher sells are made by him in the shop, from meat he has sourced locally and inevitably they cost a good deal more than the supermarket burgers I could by as an alternative for the Sunday BBQ.
There is a linkage here which Mr Cameron should find much more disturbing and even more unacceptable than horse meat in a supermarket burger.
The connection between rising poverty, which is happening now on his watch as group after group, from children in families, through working people, to the disabled and the elderly, find the cost of living rising and wages and welfare payments reducing leaving them with less money for the rent or the mortgage, less money for clothes and shoes, less money for getting about and increasingly no money at all for food, leaving them turning to a food bank run by the local church as the only way of feeding themselves or their family.
And when there is some money left, after everything has been paid, they go to the supermarket and search for the cheapest food they can find to make a meal for the family.
Burger, beans and chips can be both nutritious and tasty and it doesn't occur to anyone to ask which farm the beef in the burger was raised on or whether indeed it is beef at all, what is important is that it is cheap and cheerful.
And who can blame the suppliers of these products if they decide that in order to respond to customer demand for cheap, cheaper, cheapest food, they might cut a few corners and beef up the message in horse code and serve it with horse radish sauce?
We read the menu which was written in chalk on a board on the wall.
The Children were intrigued by one item which was written as Cheval Hamburger, but then it dawned on them that Cheval was the same word as the French use for horse.
Horrified they refused to order anything and after finishing and paying for our drinks we left.
So now they and we are horrified all over again.
Some good jokes have been shared, my favourite was: I have just eaten a burger from Tesco, I enjoyed it but I've still got a bit in my teeth.
Of course Mr Cameron was dismayed by the news which he thought was extremely disturbing and completely unacceptable and will doubtless raise it in his speech on the EEC tomorrow amidst heckling from Nigel Farage in the form of neighing noises or was that just him laughing?
At least we have been spared a latter day John Gummer on TV with his children eating burgers from a van parked outside his daughters riding school.
Or possibly worse, Michael Gove force feeding burgers to the pupils in one of his academies or free schools, perhaps with Jamie Oliver looking over his shoulder?
But what do we expect?
The thing about real food is that it costs money to produce when it has to be raised, grown and harvested.
I can pop round to my local butcher to buy the best steak and he will be able to tell me where the beast was raised, which abattoir it was sourced from and how long it has been hung, but he will charge me for it and it won't be cheap.
The burgers my Butcher sells are made by him in the shop, from meat he has sourced locally and inevitably they cost a good deal more than the supermarket burgers I could by as an alternative for the Sunday BBQ.
There is a linkage here which Mr Cameron should find much more disturbing and even more unacceptable than horse meat in a supermarket burger.
The connection between rising poverty, which is happening now on his watch as group after group, from children in families, through working people, to the disabled and the elderly, find the cost of living rising and wages and welfare payments reducing leaving them with less money for the rent or the mortgage, less money for clothes and shoes, less money for getting about and increasingly no money at all for food, leaving them turning to a food bank run by the local church as the only way of feeding themselves or their family.
And when there is some money left, after everything has been paid, they go to the supermarket and search for the cheapest food they can find to make a meal for the family.
Burger, beans and chips can be both nutritious and tasty and it doesn't occur to anyone to ask which farm the beef in the burger was raised on or whether indeed it is beef at all, what is important is that it is cheap and cheerful.
And who can blame the suppliers of these products if they decide that in order to respond to customer demand for cheap, cheaper, cheapest food, they might cut a few corners and beef up the message in horse code and serve it with horse radish sauce?
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